Joseph Hansen (socialist)

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Joseph Leroy Hansen (June 16, 1910 – January 18, 1979) was an American Trotskyist and leading figure in the Socialist Workers Party.^[1][2][3]

Early life[]

Joseph Hansen was born on June 16, 1910, in Richfield, Utah^[3] (150 miles south of Salt Lake City), the oldest of 15 children in a poor working-class family. He was the only one of the children who could attend college. His father, Conrad Johan Zahl Hansen, was a tailor, originally from the island Kvitvær, Lurøy, Nordland, in northern Norway.^[1] His parents had immigrated after they had converted to Mormonism.^[4] In school, he read a book on tariffs by Daniel De Leon.^[3]

Socialism[]

Hansen was the only member of his LDS family graduating from college. He became politically radicalized in the campus of the University of Utah by his professor of English literature Earle Birney, the follower of Trotsky, when Hansen edited University literary journal. Hansen became a convinced socialist and joined the American Trotskyist group strongly opposed to James P. Cannon^[1] in 1934.^[3] In 1936, he became assistant editor of Voice of the Federation, newsletter of West Coast maritime unions.^[3]

In spite of his opposition to Cannon, Hansen together with his wife Reba was sent to Mexico to help the exiled Russian Communist leader, Leon Trotsky. Hansen served as Trotsky's secretary, driver and guard from 1937 for the next three years.^[3] In 1938 on the request of Trotsky Hansen approached the GPU that he had become disillusioned with the Trotskyist movement and would be willing to sell the only manuscript of Trotsky’s biography of Stalin for $25,000 so that he could buy himself a “nice little ranch” in Utah and retire from politics. The GPU was not interested in the manuscript but was much more interested in the layout of Trotsky’s house in Coyoacan for obvious reasons. Trotsky thought that they at GPU would not need to send other agents if they could have Hansen. But he was wrong.^[5] When the Stalinist agent Ramón Mercader struck Trotsky in the head with a pickaxe, Hansen, together with Charles Cornell, prevented the assassin from fleeing, interrogated him, received all necessary confessions. Joe Hansen befriended James Cannon and became his follower and collaborator after Hansen's return to the US.^[1]

Hansen returned to the United States and started working as a merchant seaman. He wanted to remain a seaman, but the US government prevented from this. At the time, he became editor of the SWP's newspaper The Militant for a number of years.^[1]

From 1940 to 1975, Joe Hansen served on the SWP's National Committee. As of October 1948, he was serving as staff writer of The Militant and editorial board member of the Fourth International.^[3] In 1950 (or 1946^[3]), he ran on the SWP ticket for US Senator from New York.^[1]

He helped arrange the reunification of the International Secretariat of the Fourth International and the International Committee of the Fourth International into the United Secretariat of the Fourth International in 1963. He became a leader of the USFI and an editor of the USFI's weekly English-language news service, initially called "World Outlook" and later changed to "Intercontinental Press/Inprecor."^[1]

Hansen strongly supported the Cuban Revolution of 1959. In the 1960s, he visited Cuba with Farrell Dobbs; both were active in launching of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (founded 1960). In 1978, he published a book called Dynamics of the Cuban Revolution. A Marxist Appreciation.^[1]

Federal Informant[]

Documents discovered in the US National Archives, and others obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, revealed that Hansen, immediately after the assassination of Trotsky in 1940, sought out and established a covert relationship with high-level US government agents. One such document, a letter from the American consul in Mexico City to an official in the State Department, dated September 25, 1940, reported that Hansen “wishes to be put in touch with someone in your confidence located in New York to whom confidential information could be imparted with impunity.”^[6]

Personal life and death[]

Hansen married Reba Hansen, also a close collaborator, who remained in the Socialist Workers Party until she died in 1990.^[1]

Joseph Hansen died age 68 on January 18, 1979, from infectious complications in New York City.^[1]

Works[]

• Father Coughlin: fascist demagogue New York : Pioneer Publishers, 1939
• Wall Street's war, not ours! [New York] : Pioneer Publishers for the Socialist Workers Party, 1940
• American Workers Need a Labor Party (1944)^[7]
• The Socialist Workers Party: what it is, what it stands for (1948)^[8]
• Too many babies? a Marxist answer to some frightening questions ... New York : Pioneer Publishers, 1960
• The truth about Cuba New York, Pioneer Publishers, 1960
• In defense of the Cuban revolution: an answer to the State Department and Theodore Draper. New York, Pioneer Publishers, 1961
• The theory of the Cuban Revolution [New York] : Pioneer Publishers for the Socialist Workers Party, 1962
• Trotskyism and the Cuban revolution: an answer to Hoy New York: Pioneer Publishers, 1962
• Khrushchev's downfall. A statement by the United Secretariat of the Fourth International; New Deepening of the Sino-Soviet Rift? New York : Pioneer Publishers, 1964
• Healy "reconstructs" the Fourth International documents and comments by participants in fiasco (preface) New York: Socialist Workers Party 1966
• The catastrophe in Indonesia; three articles on the fatal consequences of Communist party policy. (introduction) New York: Merit Publishers 1966
• Behind China's great cultural revolution by (contributor) New York: Merit Publishers 1967
• The Nature of the Cuban revolution: record of a controversy, 1960-1963 New York: National Education Dept., Socialist Workers Party 1968
• Leon Trotsky: the man and his work. Reminiscences and appraisals, (contributor) New York: Merit Publishers 1969
• The population explosion: how socialists view it New York: Pathfinder Press, 1970 (revised edition of Too many babies)
• The Abern clique New York: National Education Dept., Socialist Workers Party 1972
• Nixon's Moscow and Peking Summits: their meaning for Vietnam (with ) New York: Pathfinder Press, 1972
• A Revolutionary strategy for the 70s; documents of the Socialist Workers Party. (contributor) New York: Pathfinder Press, 1972
• The workers and farmers government New York: National Education Dept., Socialist Workers Party 1974
• Marxism vs. ultraleftism: the record of Healy's break with Trotskyism by Ernest Germain (introduction) New York: National Education Dept., Socialist Workers Party 1974
• Healy's big lie: the slander campaign against Joseph Hansen, George Novack, and the Fourth International: statements and articles National Education Dept., Socialist Workers Party 1976
• What is American fascism?: writings on Father Coughlin, Mayor Frank Hague, and Senator Joseph McCarthy (with James Cannon) National Education Dept., Socialist Workers Party 1976
• Dynamics of the Cuban revolution: the Trotskyist view New York: Pathfinder Press, 1978
• The Leninist strategy of party building: the debate on guerrilla warfare in Latin America New York: Pathfinder Press, 1979

References[]

External links[]

• Joseph Hansen Archive at marxists.org.
• What the Record Really Shows: The Test of the Cuban Revolution by Joseph Hansen. International Socialist Review January 1965.
• Bio-bibliographical sketch of Joseph Hansen at the Lubitz TrotskyanaNet.
• Novack, George. "Joseph Hansen, 1910-1979" (PDF). Intercontinental Press. 7 (3): 51. Retrieved 5 December 2017.